On December 8 the Croatian Antifascist League organized a memorial for Aleksandra Zec, her mother Marija, and father Mihajlo on Sljeme. The memorial was held on the exact location where mother and daughter were murdered on December 8 1991. During the memorial service multimedia artist Ivan Marušić Klif set up a video installation, while poet Monika Herceg read her poem dedicated to Aleksandra. We bring you the transcript of the speech given by Branka Vierde from the Youth Initiative For Human Rights. Video and photographs from the memorial can be found in the gallery.
“Today, twenty years on, we remember the girl Aleksandra Zec who was murdered with a gunshot to the head on the exact location we are standing now. That same evening, here on Sljeme, her mother Marija was also killed, as was her father in front of their home in Trešnjevka earlier that same day. The perpetrators from Merčep’s death squad were not held responsible – procedural reasons prevented from establishing blame and issuing punishment. But what was Aleksandra’s crime and why was she punished? Aleksandra was Serbian and sentenced to death for it. Young people today need to know that before they were born there existed a girl named Aleksandra who differed from her peers not by her grades in school or by the jacket she wore, but only by her nationality. No one who values peace and freedom can allow the name of Aleksandra Zec to be erased from history, and all who care about justice and equality have to persistently denounce bad intentions of the political establishment that allows such a heinous crime to go unpunished. A monument to Aleksandra is not necessary only for the preservation of her memory among citizens of Zagreb and Croatia, it is necessary for all of humanity, to stir us and alarm us, to serve as a reminder that we must never come to terms with living in a society where murderers go unpunished, while the innocent are slaughtered. May the memory of Aleksandra always grant us strength to fight injustice, the responsibility to persist in our fight against intolerance and violence, and the will to build a better society.”
Branka Vierda,
Youth Initiative For Human Rights